What a difference a dark sky makes

[Stu]

I'm up near Nottingham, (Radcliffe on Trent near enough) for the night and had my trusty TV85 with me. I was hoping for some decent skies, and wasn't disappointed.

I started around 9.30pm with nice views of Saturn, followed by the Double Double which split beautifully at anything from x86 upwards. At x200 it was as good as I've seen, perfect stars with very clear separations :-).

My main aim for the night however was the Veil, with a somewhat hopeful ambition of the NA nebula too. From home I never see the Milky Way, but from up here it was quite obvious despite being on the edge of an estate and was very nice particularly through Cygnus. Using the 24 Pan gives a 2.72 degree field and 3.4mm exit pupil. I really needed the 21e for 3.5 and 3mm but didn't have it with me. With Lumicon UHC the Western Veil was subtle but immediately visible as soon as I centred on 52 Cygni.

With averted vision it was much more obvious and got better as I observed for longer. The Eastern Veil was very clear, and well defined. Given that my eyes were not really very well adapted, and I was observing about 8 feet away from the kitchen window with the light on, I was really surprised how clear it was.

Under better conditions with full dark adaptation I think this combination will work very well and shows the effectiveness of the Lumicon. I found that the stars were still nicely visible and sharp without distortion so overall I'm very pleased. The OIII was still good, but a little darker so will come into its own with better conditions.

My second challenge of the NA nebula I will only claim as a partial success. I found the Gulf region but mainly through star fields with very subtle nebulosity. Again, better dark adaptation and it will be very achievable.

So, I then had a little trawl around my old favourites, and was joined by a slightly tipsy Mrs and Granny Maksutov, the baby being safely in bed! I managed to get them looking at a few objects...M57, 27 and 13 were all greeted with the usual, 'well I can just about see a fuzzy grey blob', and Brocchi's cluster was, to them, only slightly convincing as a Coathanger. However, I was successful with the Double Cluster which found approval with a somewhat drunken 'ahhh, lots of pretty stars' being uttered, rather loudly for approaching midnight!! :-). Finally NGC457 was well received with both managing to see the 'ET' shape, despite him being upside down.

A lovely evening, nice and warm, no mossies or dew to contend with, lovely skies and very nice to have some company too.

Cheers,

Stu

EDIT Having just seen Nick's great report, I will add M11 to the list too, very nice :-)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RichM63]

You'll get away with more noise tonight, it being Friday an' all.

Great report. Sounds to have been fun.

[swamp thing]

Nice one Stu

Try setting up a bit further from the kitchen window next time

Gotta love them dark skies.

[Stu]

Will do Steve. In fact, I'm in the middle of Sherwood Forest tonight with the promise of clear skies, so will report back tomorrow

Stu

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mapstar]

Great report Stu and good luck with sherwood forest should be great skies

[Stu]

Well, unfortunately although the skies were clear, the transparency didn't seem to be very good at all. Could only faintly see the Milky Way. That said, I had much better dark adaptation and there was very little light pollution around, no kitchen lights this time ;-) so the OIII worked much better, it does prove that point anyway. I didn't have so long, perhaps an hour and again just concentrated on the Veil and NA nebulae.

The Veil was slightly better than the previous night, and I was able to faintly pick up Pickering's wisp too which was great. I only wish I'd had space for the Genesis; the additional aperture and wider field would have been fantastic.

This time I can claim a definite on the NA nebula though. Using the OIII the nebulosity was very clear, and I spent a long time panning over it, trying to establish the extent of it. Very nice indeed :-)

Finished with a whirl around Cassiopeia clusters and a trip down Kemble's Cascade.

Ultimately frustrating because a nice transparent night here would have been stunning, but still nice to have time with two lovely objects which are not visible from home.

Stu

[Daniel-K]

very nice stu, I had a good outing with my new astronomic UHC last night.

[Stu]

Nice one Dan, how did you find it?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mike73]

Nice one Stu, dark skies are great aren't they?

I've never seen NA Nebula through a scope but took the girlfriend out to the local dark site last night to show her the Milky Way, she pointed out the 'big cloud with a chunk taken out of the side' aka the NA Neb!

[strutsinaction]

Really dark skies are truly wonderful. I've just got back from Sardinia where the night sky was awesome. Night after night the views were stunning. I've never seen the Milky Way look so clear.

John